24 November 2022 - homily for Thanksgiving Day - Thursday of the 34th week in Ordinary Time - Sirach 50: 22-24, Psalm 145, 1 Corinthians 1:3-9

       Thanksgiving is an important national holiday in our country. Today, we pause from our busy daily lives in order to give thanks for our blessings and for the abundance we have as a nation. We give thanks for our family and friends, for our community, for our unity as a nation. We are called to give thanks and gratitude today not out of a sense of obligation or duty, but because we want to do so out of the goodness of our hearts, because we truly want to give thanks.  In our faith, giving thanks is a way to experience the world.  Giving thanks is a way for us to be able to open up our hearts.  But giving thanks does not mean that we ignore the realities of our lives and our world.  We acknowledge as well that many people struggle with grief, addictions, loneliness, and despair at Thanksgiving time and around the Christmas holidays. Perhaps we ourselves or members of our family are in the midst of such a reality. 

      May we be reminded today that although Thanksgiving has its roots in the colonial American colonies even before our nation was formed, Thanksgiving was not declared a national holiday until 1863, being announced a national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln in the midst of our country’s Civil War. Thanksgiving was declared a national holiday several months after the Battle of Gettysburg, with more than 57,000 casualties by some estimates. Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address on November 19, 1863, just a few days before our first national celebration of Thanksgiving. Lincoln expressed grief and compassion in his proclamation at Gettysburg, asking his fellow citizens to commend to the tender care of God all who became “widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged.”

      In Sacred Scripture, thanksgiving is reflected in an attitude of adoration, sacrifice, praise, and offering. For the Jewish people, Thanksgiving is a grateful language to God as an act of worship.  In our reading from Sirach, a blessing is given to God for the great things he has done for us here on earth. The psalmist proclaims that he will praise the name of the Lord forever. Even though St Paul went to prison for the faith, even though he had many trials and tribulations as a result of the Gospel message he proclaimed, he is still able to give thanks to God, especially for the blessings God has given us in our Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to the Lord today in the midst of our joys and our sorrows, in the midst of our blessings and challenges, in the midst of chaotic times and peaceful times, in the midst of our contentments and our frustrations.  As a country and as individuals, let us give thanks.  

23 November 2022 - homily for Wednesday of the 34th week in Ordinary Time - Luke 21:12-19

      In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns his disciples that they will suffer for him in their trials and tribulations, but that he will be there accompanying them, strengthening them, and protecting them.  Today’s reading is a continuation of yesterday’s Gospel from the 21st chapter of Luke’s Gospel. Jesus warns his disciples about the upcoming persecutions and violence that they will have to endure. The members of the Early Church will soon face these things that Jesus warned them about. Those things will also play out throughout the history of the Church, including in our modern era. Jesus tells his disciples that they will be handed over to prisons and synagogues. Think of how John the Baptist was handed over to King Herod, being put in prison and eventually put to death. Jesus, too, will be handed over to the civil and religious authorities.  Why would Christ’s disciples be worried about being handed over to the synagogues, since they are practicing Jews themselves? Many of Christ’s followers in the first century found themselves in conflict with the Jewish synagogues and institutions. In the first century, the synagogues were not only places of religious worship, but also, they were places of civil administration, a place where civil trials were held. When I became a priest in 2008, I never dreamed of the open hostility that we Christians would face in North America and Europe today, of the secularism that is trying to wipe out any influence Christianity has on our society. Perhaps in reading the Sacred Scriptures and studying Church history, we can better understand what we are going through and realize that in many ways, history repeats itself.  May we learn from the challenges and struggles of the past. 

22 November 2022 - Tuesday of the 34th week in Ordinary Time - St Cecilia - Luke 21:5-11

     We are journeying in our last few days of Ordinary Time as we approach the beginning of the holy season of Advent and the first Sunday of the Church’s new liturgical year. In today's Gospel, we hear about the Temple in Jerusalem, which during the time of Jesus was one of the most magnificent buildings in the ancient world. The people of Jesus’ day admired the beauty, power, and majesty of the Temple, believing that it would last forever. But, then, Jesus foretells the destruction of theTemple. We can imagine the shock and skepticism in which they received Jesus’ message. Just think how just a few years before the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11 in 2001, we would have felt disbelief and skepticism if someone had foretold of the destruction of that great center of the financial power in our own country.       

       In Jesus’ day and in our day as well, there are conspiracy theorists and others who think they can predict events such as the end of the world. Yet, 40 years after Jesus made this prediction, the Jews of Ancient Israel saw the destruction of the Temple and the entire city of Jerusalem. They must have thought it was the end of the world. They could not have imagined their world without the Temple, the center of their Jewish faith, the place where they encountered God. How could Yahweh allow such a thing to happen? Yet, Jesus warns us that we should not misread the signs of the times, that we should not become too alarmed. The Christians of the first century were certain that the end times would come in their lifetime. Now, 2,000 years later, we still wait. The 20th century witnessed many wars and natural disasters. We know that those things will continue. Yet, with Christ as our Savior, we continue our journey, we believe and we endure.  In faith, we make it to the next day. 

      I would be remiss if I did not mention the saint of the day, St Cecilia.  Not too many details are known about her, even though she was one of the most famous Roman martyrs venerated in the Early Church. According to Church Tradition, St Cecilia was born into an influential Roman family. She converted her fiancé to the Christian faith, but Cecilia, her fiancé, and his brother were all martyred. Tradition passes down that there was a church named after St Cecilia in Rome in the early days of Christianity. St Cecilia is known as the patron saint of musicians, although we do not know the true origins of this tradition.  We unite our prayers with the intercessions of St Cecilia today.  We pray for our Church musicians. 

27 NOVEMBER 2022 - Homily for the 1st Sunday of Advent - Isaiah 2:1-5, Matthew 24:37-44

     The prophet Isaiah has a vision of all the nations gathering together on Mount Zion. Isaiah looks forward to a time when the covenant between God and his people will be extended to all. It is a vision of everyone living in peace and harmony with God and with their fellow human beings. At the time Isaiah prophesied in the late 8th century BC, the Jewish people were divided between the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Israel was already under Assyrian rule, while Judah and its capital city of Jerusalem were in danger of being conquered by the Babylonians. In this vision of peace, the Lord will mediate the disputes that exist amongst the nations, as the nations will beat their swords into plowshares, leaving behind war and violence. Isaiah’s vision of salvation is offered to all the nations.  It is not just for the Jewish people. This vision would have been radical and unheard-of for the Jews of the 8th century BC as well as the Jews of Jesus’ day. We might think that this vision of the world is unrealistic in our own day as well.  In her poem “Evidence,” poet Mary Oliver challenges us: “Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” Indeed, certain boundaries and limits are important for us to have in our journey through life, but it is also important for us as disciples of Christ to be able to dream the unimaginable, such as the Son of God coming to us as a little baby in a humble stable in Bethlehem on Christmas morning. 

     Our psalmist sings today, “Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.” Jewish pilgrims used to sing this hymn at they journeyed on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the site of their holy Temple, the dwelling place of God here on earth. As we sing those words today in our psalm, as we start our preparations on this first Sunday of Advent, we’re called to look longingly toward Christmas, the feast of the celebration of God made incarnate with us.  

     A lot of us have read books by Matthew Kelly, the well-known Catholic lay evangelist and best-selling author. A few years ago, he wrote a book called Resisting Happiness. As our reading talks the about Jewish pilgrims going to Jerusalem, one of the chapters in Kelly’s book caught my eye, entitled: “Are You a Pilgrim or a Tourist?”  We Catholics are a pilgrim people, journeying here on earth to the eternal life we will have in Christ. Many of us also go on physical and spiritual pilgrimage journeys at different times in our lives. I recently went to Italy and we’ve had parishioners go to Rome or the Holy Land on pilgrimage. Think about how we would approach life if we are in “tourist mode.”  A tourist wants everything as he has planned and imagined it. He wants to cram everything into a planned out schedule. A tourist demands prompt attention and service to his every need. A tourist focuses on himself and shoves past others, going sightseeing and counting the cost. But, pilgrims are very different from tourists. A pilgrim looks for signs and symbols on the journey, seeing the spiritual aspect of the journey every step of the way.  A pilgrim tries to see God in all of his experiences, both the planned experiences and the unexpected surprises, both in joys and in challenges. A pilgrim has a focus not only on himself, but also on others, on service to others. A pilgrim focuses as much on the journey as the destination. Our journey of faith is a pilgrimage, a sacred journey. Our journey during the season of Advent is a special pilgrimage, too.  

     Our daily lives are complicated.  Complicated, complex, and busy.  But as Jesus reminds us today on this first Sunday of Advent, we need to be alert always in the midst of our busy lives, ready for eternal life, ready for when Jesus comes again. In the Gospel, the man working in the field and the woman working at the mill will be “left," because they won’t leave their work.  True enough, work and the many other things that occupy our lives are very important.  We need to support ourselves, to live out our vocation, and to contribute to society.  We provide food and shelter for ourselves and our families. But there is something more important: the coming of the Son of Man. God will arrive again unexpectedly. We don't know the time or the hour, so we are called to be prepared for him at all times. We are in the midst of our hectic holiday season. No matter how busy we are, our focus this Advent season is to keep our daily life centered on Christ.  

20 November 2022 – homily for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe – Luke 23:35-43

    We’ve had many great emperors and kings throughout human history.  One of the greatest emperors in the ancient world was Alexander the Great, who lived 4 centuries before Christ's birth.  Alexander wanted to rule the world. He even called himself the “King of Kings." His empire eventually included much of the known ancient world: from his native Greece to India, Egypt, and Palestine.  Alexander had a great intellect; the renowned Greek philosopher Aristotle was one of his teachers. Alexander was such a great military commander that his military strategy is still studied by military leaders today.  Like any great leader, Alexander knew what he needed to do in order to rally his troops and to gain their loyalty. There is a story told of Alexander’s travels with his troops in the deserts of Persia. His entire army ran out of water; they were getting very desperate. Intolerable thirst seized them as they traveled under the hot desert sun. A couple of Alexander's lieutenants captured some precious water from a caravan passing through the desert. The lieutenants brought the water to Alexander in one of the soldier’s helmets. Alexander asked if there was enough water to give to the troops, but he was told that there was only enough for him alone to drink.  Alexander lifted up the helmet as his men watched him intently, but instead of drinking the precious water, he poured it on the ground.  His men let out a great shout, knowing that their great leader would not allow them to suffer anything he was unwilling to accept and suffer himself. Alexander the Great proved many times why he was viewed as such a great powerful leader. 

       In our modern world, we think of a king or emperor as having great power and strength. All the kings and emperors who led the mighty empires and kingdoms here on earth pale in comparison to Christ, the true King of Kings. Yet, as we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King today at the end of our liturgical year, we don’t have readings about Christ’s power and might at Mass today, but rather we hear about Jesus as he dies on the cross, accompanied by the two thieves who are also about to be crucified alongside him. Many of the values of our world call out to us to acquire wealth, to seek power, to assert our domination and superiority over others. Often times, our world asks us to seek revenge or payback rather than to work towards reconciliation or healing. Yet, as disciples of Christ, we are taught that there is another way.  We follow a leader who wore a crown of thorns rather than a crown of gold and jewels, who sought to love rather than to dominate, who forged solidarity and unity with the poor and the marginalized rather than alliances with the rich and powerful, who led a group of twelve apostles who brought his Good News to the world rather than a powerful army that sought to conquer and defeat others. It is by these values that Jesus lived on earth, and that he proclaimed in God's kingdom.  It is by these values that we will be judged at the end of days: by how we bring God’s love and mercy to the world through our words and actions, by the way we live out God's love and mercy each day.  

     There is so much about our faith that perhaps we struggle to understand. Even with some of the dogmas and teachings of the Church that we seem to understand on the surface, we sometimes have a hard time applying them to real life situations. The great 11th century philosopher, St Anselm of Canterbury, called it faith seeking understanding, meaning that out of the active love we have for God, we seek a deeper understanding of God and we seek to live out our faith in our daily reality. Out of our faith, we seek a personal experience of God, a personal encounter in which we can truly say that Christ is our king and our shepherd.  In that way, Jesus is to be more than a noun in our lives. Jesus needs to be a verb, an action word by which we live our lives.  Jesus as our savior, our shepherd, and our king calls us to action and a way of life. As we get ready to prepare for the birth of Christ in the world at the start of the season of Advent next Sunday, may we look around us and see the ways we are called to bring Christ's message to the world.

18 November 2022 – Homily for the feast day of the Dedication of the Basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul – Friday of the 33rd week in Ordinary Time - Luke 19:45 - 48

          Today, we celebrate the dedication of the basilicas of St Peter and St Paul, two of the four major basilicas in Rome.  The other two major basilicas are St Mary Major and St John Lateran. Our Church also celebrates the feasts of their dedications as well in our liturgical calendar. We just celebrated the feast of St John Lateran on November 9.   The basilica of St Peter is perhaps one of the most well-known places of worship in all of Christianity.  The current structure of St Peter began construction in the year 1506, but it was not completed until 1626 under the papacy of Urban VIII. The Basilica of St Paul's is often referred to as "St Paul Outside the Walls," as it was built by the Emperor Constantine in 324 along the Ostiense Way about a mile outside of the Aurelian Walls that surrounded the city of Rome.  The Basilica was enlarged and renovated in the late 4th century, but was later destroyed by fire, with the new basilica built from what remained in the mid-19th century.  

            In today’s well-known Gospel story, we hear about Jesus expressing his righteous anger over what he sees going on in the Temple, how a place that is supposed to be centered on worship and prayer has become a place for its community’s business transactions and negotiations.  It makes me wonder how Jesus would view our parishes and our places of worship today in our modern world, how he would view the liturgy and the other parish activities that take place here at our humble parish. The attitude of those he saw in the Temple so angered Jesus, incurring his wrath.  What would he think of our attitudes, of the way we welcome the stranger in our midst, of the way we reach out to the poor and the oppressed in our community, of the way we take care of the church and use it to lift up our Lord and our faith? 

            As we come to Mass and come to church, let us examine the attitudes and actions that we bring with us.  Are they befitting of a place that is set aside for community worship and for our holy encounter with God? 

17 November 2022 - Thursday of the 33rd week in Ordinary Time - Luke 19:41-44

      In our Gospel passage today, Jesus approaches the holy city of Jerusalem for the last time during his public ministry here on earth, during which he is overcome with emotion.  He weeps for his city and for his people, knowing in his heart that destruction and calamity will befall them soon. Jesus knew that the Jews of Ancient Israel struggled throughout their history to follow God, to be true to God’s commandments and laws, and  to honor their covenant with him. For the many times that they strayed, the Jews were often recalcitrant and willfully disobedient. Perhaps on our own faith journey through life, we may struggle with the same things that the Jews did in Ancient Israel.  

       I was listening to a podcast, produced by a high school teacher at a private academy in Portland, Oregon. This young man has contributed many writings and broadcasts to promote the pilgrimage of the Way of St James in Spain, a pilgrimage that has its roots in the Catholic faith, as its end point in the Cathedral in Spain that contains the remain of St James the Greater, Apostle. Even today, certificates for the completion of the pilgrimage are issued by the Diocese of Santiago de Compostela. I have listened to more than 30 different podcast episodes that this young man has produced, enjoying them immensely.  However, it shocked me when he stated in one of his podcasts that he considers himself a secular pilgrim and does not bring an attitude of spirituality and faith when he approaches his pilgrimage walks on the Camino. He says that he is not a Christian and not a believer. That comment shocked me a bit, because he is such a big fan of the pilgrimage route and nothing he had said previously led me believe that he approached pilgrimage from a non-religious and non-spiritual perspective.  As Catholics and as disciples of Christ, we are called to approach life through the lens of our faith, to be faithful witnesses to Christ's Gospel.  We are called to undertake great sacrifices and hardships for the sake of the faith.  As opposed to how Jesus saw the people of Jerusalem of his day, may he be able to say to us at the end of our journey: “Well done, faithful disciple.”